


last call

by CopperCaravan



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Codename: Tens, F/M, Other, when will AO3 get a dedicated themslash tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 05:13:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10379274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperCaravan/pseuds/CopperCaravan
Summary: Tens and Deacon do not have a conversation before she uses the relay to get to the Institute.





	

**Author's Note:**

> More "I'm mad, here's a thing I didn't mean to write."

Nobody could tell from looking at her but Deacon knows: Tens isn’t brave.

People think she is because she does the things nobody else will, the things nobody else _can_ , but it’s not because she’s brave. It’s because she’s alone, it’s because she’s afraid, it’s because she’s pissed off. It’s because she doesn’t have much choice.

Des, Tom, and Sturges are all crowded around the console. It smells like hot metal. He’s not... excited about this.

Sturges and Tom loudly disagreeing about “scrambling her molecules” isn’t helping.

Tens is about as far from the relay as she can get, staring at one of Sanctuary’s hollowed out houses with her arms wrapped so tight around her that Deacon can see her fingers digging into her sides.

“You ready for this?” He almost puts his hand on her shoulder but when she turns around and looks at him, he loses his nerve and drags his hand around the back of his head instead—stubble’s starting to grow back in. Maybe he could let it? Just for a while. Dye it or something... She did say something a while back about his natural hair—well, more specifically, about his eyebrows.

She shrugs. “Ready as I can be, I guess.”

She’s still mad at him. She won’t say so, but he knows. Just like he knows she’s terrified.

_“Guess you were right: can’t trust everyone.”_ All things considered, that really shouldn’t have got at him but damn, it did. Like a punch in the gut. Even if he was willing to apologize—and he’s not, he’s _not_ , dammit, because it’s _true_ —he can’t tell her that now, not right before she goes through that _thing._

But it feels so wrong not to say something.

Tom beats him to it. “We’re ready over here!”

She cuts her eyes to the side, like she’s looking at the relay. She’s not. She’s just not looking at Deacon. One more beat of silence that he should be filling. But he doesn’t. And she walks away.

This is becoming a theme with them.

Kind of always been a theme with him.

When she steps up onto the platform, her hands are balled into fists. Either she’s gonna die, or she’s gonna end up inside the Institute (and _then_ maybe die).

“Now just... try to relax, ok?” It’s Sturges saying that and Deacon knows it should be him.

“Mhm.” All the blood’s drained from her face and she looks like she did that time Tom tried to give her a shot of nano-whats-its and battery acid.

The relay starts humming and whirring and crackling and Deacon doesn’t really know too much about how all this is supposed to work but he’s _pretty_ sure that tubey thing shouldn’t be wiggling around like that...

“Tom!”

“I got it, I got it.”

“When you get in, use this holotape to make contact with Patriot.” Desdemona seems far too calm about all this. But then again, Des hasn’t dropped that calm veneer in a long, long time... “ _Do not_ blow your cover, Wanderer. Do whatever it takes.”

Des keeps talking, but Tens isn’t really listening. She’s holding that holotape in one hand so tight, Deacon’s a little worried she’s gonna break it and her other hand is still balled into a fist. He’s not certain that’s not blood peeking out from under her fingers.

Maybe it won’t work. He shouldn’t hope for that—all the time and resources she’s put into this thing, all the work Tom’s done, all the lives riding on this—but he does, a little. Maybe it won’t work and everything will be fine.

It won’t be fine. It’ll all just keep going on as it has: synths and Coursers and the back and forth the Railroad and the Institute have been playing for years and years now. She still won’t have her answers. She’ll just try again, try something else. Not because she’s brave but because she has to, because she’s afraid and alone and angry.

So it’s gotta work and all he can hope is that is _does._

_Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die._ He should’ve said something. He should’ve said _something_ that didn’t sound like _goodbye_.

Everything stops, just for a second. Just as the relay pounds out a bright column of light, just as it envelopes her, time stops.

Her eyes widen, she reaches out toward him— _stay still, stay still, don’t die, stay still_ —and she almost says his name. “Deac—”

And then she’s gone, a molten heap of blackened metal left smoking where she stood.

“All we can do now is wait,” Des says, voice as smooth and calm as the smoke rising from her lips.

Deacon’s always had plenty to pray for, just never anything to pray to. _Please,_ he begs. _Please, please, please._


End file.
